NMA- Nigeria Medical Association has said that only 24, 000 actively licensed Doctors are remaining in the country following the recent brain drain.
NMA President, Ojinmah Uche made this known during a policy dialogue on Nigeria’s health sector brain drain and its implications for sustainable child and family health service delivery, said the 24,000 actively licensed physicians are taking care of Nigeria’s over 200 million population.
Ojinmah pointed that based on the WHO established minimum threshold, a country needs a mix of 23 doctors, nurses and midwives per 10,000 population to deliver essential maternal and child health services.
He further blamed the brain drain on poor funding of the health sector, stressful medical education, non-existent house job slots, difficulty in gaining employment, poor remuneration, unnecessary and unhealthy inter-professional rivalry, insecurity, among others.
The event was organized by the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies in collaboration with the Partnership for Advancing Child and Family Health at Scale project of the development Research and Projects Centre (dRPC),